A con man who operated a wine scamming operation in the UK has been sent to prison.
Spyros Constantinos, 44, was sentenced to eight years after his five-year plot was uncovered. He fooled a number of professional people into parting with money by promising high returns on ‘fine Bordeaux wine’.
Instead of buying wine as advertised, Constantinos used the money to advance a wealthy personal lifestyle, including trips to Harrods and Selfridges, private education fees for his two children, and family holidays abroad.
Would-be investors, including a doctor and a vicar, were reeled in with promises of returns varying from nearly 9% to as high as 50%, advertised in glossy brochures. A string of companies were set up using different names as part of the sting, the court heard, as well as a bank account in Spain.
That account enabled Constantinos to continue trading after a 2008 conviction for running a fraudulent wine investment scheme.
Potential investors are encouraged to check online with Companies House to see if the business has a genuine registration and VAT number as well as looking to see if a director has been disqualified.
British investors lose £1.2bn a year in investment scams. Wine investments, share sales, "land banking" and carbon credits are popular scams, according to Action Fraud, the national body run by the police.
Wine investments in particular are taken up by fraudsters as the industry is little regulated. With no official rules to protect savers if a firm becomes insolvent or acts illegally, investors have no access to compensation or redress.
In court, the accused said his business was legitimate, but that he had been let down by his supplier. But he would found guilty at the Old Bailey on 10 offences related to the fraud.
Comments
Total bull**it ! Test it for yourself. Go on any of the expat websites and announce you are coming to Portugal and intend starting a tourism business. Maybe a campsite or guesthouse.
And the killer question - "Can anyone put you in touch with someone from your country who has already set one up? Who you can visit to confirm they are fully legal and licensed. "
Then wait for any reply. And wait. At best some vague woffle ... no one sure if any are 'legal and licensed'. Any website given will not show a tourism reference ID - so can be assumed not to have one. Hopeless !
But being naive and unaware of the enormity of the scam - you can only think like a northern EU.
You are aware that there are over 260,000 tourism businesses in the UK generating 126bn for the economy. Many 'foreigner' owned and run with full support from the local tourism enterprise. It would not occur to the 'authorities' to discriminate against them. Not least because they are professional.
People imagine they know about wine, but at best they know about drinking it, not the business of selling it.